In the remote southeast Asian country of Shadaloo, the power mad dictator General M. Bison (Raul Julia) is trying to usurp power and take over first the country, then the world. OF COURSE!!! To fund his megalomaniacal schemes, he's captured several dozen relief workers, who totally are not from the Red Cross, and is holding them hostage for the sum of twenty billion US dollars. It is up to the Allied Nation forces, led by Col. William F. Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme), to get in there, take out Bison, and rescue the hostages. And they have three days to do so before hostages start dying. His immediate subordinates include Lieutenant Cammy (Kylie Minogue). and Sergeant T. Hawk (Gregg Rainwater).

Ace reporter Chun-Li Xiang (Ming-Na Wen), joined by former champion boxer Balrog (Grand L. Bush) and sumotori E. Honda (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo) are sucked into the action, while smugglers Rye-you and Ken (played respectively by Byron Mann and Damian Chapa) conduct shady business deals with local Muay Thai god Victor Sagat (Wes Studi). They, along with the cage fighter Vega (Jay Tavare) are thrown in jail. Meanwhile, Guile's old buddy Carlos "Charlie" Blanka (Robert Mammone) is used in Dr. Dhalsim's (Roshan Seth) Super Soldier project, to turn him into a green-skinned, super powerful monstrosity. Eventually all parties involved converge on Bison's base for the epic final showdown.

If you're even slightly familiar with the Street Fighter storyline (at least of what was established at the time Super Street Fighter II was released), you'll notice something seems a little... well, off.

To say the least, the film is very polarizing to fans of the series. Some consider it chuckle worthy and a Guilty Pleasure, others claim it is a hackneyed presentation of the series. But considering all the memes that stemmed from it, it's most likely a Cult Classic.

Aspects of the movie were expanded on in the cartoon Street Fighter, which came out shortly after the film.

Adaptational Villainy: Zangief (a characterization that stuck in the cartoon, although he's more Obliviously Evil here) and, very glaringly, Dee Jay. Ryu and Ken are a minor case, because they're more on the neutral side of things here. Downplayed with Sagat, whose Noble Demon aspect in the games was not as emphasized as it would be later within the SF canon.

Dhalsim, who goes from a stretching, fire-breathing yoga master, to a bullied lab technician with no powers. Supposedly, he would have gotten his powers in the sequel, but it was never made. The American cartoon had Dhalsim resemble his video game counterpart more closely, but he still had a role in turning Blanka into a monster.

Dee Jay goes from being a kickboxer to a computer technician in the employ of Bison.

Adapted Out: Fei Long couldn't be worked into the script and was left out of the film. Captain Sawada serves as a substitute of sorts.

Affably Evil: Zangief genuinely believes that Bison is a wise leader and that he's fighting for the good guys. He sees their organization as some inspiring movement and expresses love for their "team spirit" while instructing Ken and Ryu.

Amazon Chaser: Only briefly. When Chun-Li manages to get away after finding out Guile faked his death, he says "what a woman" in response to her being called crazy.

Sagat is supposed to be Thai. In this film, he is portrayed by a full-blooded American Indian Cherokee actor, Wes Studi, who plays the Muay Thai master with his thick Oklahoma accent.

Bison is from an unspecified country, but is portrayed by the great Puerto Rican actor, Raúl Juliá, with no mention at all of the character's origins. It's even stranger when you factor in Ming-Na, an actress from Macau. In the games, Chun-Li is an Interpol agent whose father, a detective, was killed while investigating the global Shadaloo syndicate. But this film seems to suggest Bison is concentrated in a single backwater country.

Banana Republic: Shadaloo fits the description to a T (backwards tropical country ruled by a small corrupt clique), except that its located in Southeast Asia instead of Latin America.

Bare-Fisted Monk: Bison carries no weapons and has disdain for anything other than unarmed combat. Upon meeting, Guile is happy to oblige. Later, things get weird.

Berserk Button: Openly questioning Bison's sanity is definitely not recommended for anyone keen on staying alive and healthy. He plans to sic Blanka on the kidnapped AN workers simply because they called him "mad".

Bicep-Polishing Gesture: Guile does this to taunt Bison while being interviewed at the beginning of the movie. Given that it's Jean Claude Van Damme doing it, it's probably the bras d'honneur.

Bollywood Nerd: Dhalsim, a yoga master in the games, is now an Indian scientist forced to work for Bison.

Brand X: The AN, analogous to the United Nations. According to the director's commentary, the UN threatened to sue the pants off the filmmakers if they portrayed them.note Since that film shows the UN stand-in willing to give in to a terrorists' demands, it's not surprising.

Cool Boat: The experimental AN stealth ship that Guile, Cammy and Hawk use to spearhead the raid on Bison's base at the climax. Turns invisible, is armored and has a deployable gatling gun. Unfortunately for said boat, Bison's got mines and anti-stealth countermeasures.

Crazy-Prepared: Bison has a life support system (CPR, defibrillator, adrenaline injection) built into his uniform, which kicks in after Guile defeats him the first time.

Create Your Own Hero: Chun-Li says to Bison that her father used to lead an uprising against him when he was killed, supposedly by one of Bison's cronies, and it drove her to avenge him. Bison's response?

Creator Cameo: Capcom's CEO at the time (Kenzo Tsujimoto) makes a cameo appearance during Guile's speech near the end (he's the stout middle-aged Japanese guy who appears prominently in a few shots).

Death by Irony: When Bison captures a bunch of AN soldiers, he tells them: "You came from across the world to fight me soldier. Now's your chance." He then challenges each of them to hand-to-hand combat and kills them one by one. Bison also attempts to kill the hostages in this manner by setting Blanka loose on them.

Bison: Your masters at the AN call me a wild beast. So be it. You do not deserve the martial dignity of a firing squad. You shall be killed by a wild beast!

The Ditz: Zangief. They see on a live video feed that a large vehicle filled with dynamite rigged to blow is about to crash into the very building they are in. Zangief's solution is "Quick! Change the channel!"

Dumb Muscle: Zangief, to the point where he actually thought that Bison's group were the good guys, fighting against the evil, oppressive AN despite the fact that he knew Bison had taken hostages and was in the middle of ransoming them. And, of course, the scene with the TV, where he thinks changing the channel will make the exploding truck coming at them on live TV go away.

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Bison can't seem to grasp why people call him horrific and evil. This is coming from the man who never remembers people he's murdered due to his enormous ego considering them so far beneath him, is holding people hostage, and has a chandelier made of human bones.

Evil Counterpart: Sagat to Ken, as by the end Ken sees Sagat as what he could have become if he had given to his selfishness and greed. And possibly by association Vega to Ryu.

Face Death with Dignity: Bison is willing to do this and expects Dee Jay to do the same, but Dee Jay isn't so enthusiastic about it.

Failed a Spot Check: Ken and Ryu walk right into the middle of a standoff between Bison and Sagat's forces, loudly announcing the place is going to blow up in 10 minutes. This is justified as Ken and Ryu are working as Guile's undercover agents and if Bison dies at the black market, the hostages will never be found.

Faux Action Girl: Bison accuses Chun-Li of being this, but that was part of her plan.

Faux Affably Evil: Bison is respectful and polite (unless you push his Berserk Button, that is) while making no secret of the fact that he's also a murderous dictator. Bison voices his regret at Guile's apparent demise, for he wanted the two of them to meet each other in combat as noble warriors... right before he would personally snap his spine. He also makes a rather emotional speech that he wants to help mankind by enslaving the world with an army of super soldiers and is very cordial when explaining to Chun-Li why he can't remember killing her father.

Fictional United Nations: The Allied Nations. The organization was created because the real United Nations threatened to sue the filmmakers.

Forced to Watch: Sagat placed Ryu in the cage match against Vega, and is making Ken watch because he'll be next.

From Bad to Worse: Ken actually says "It got worse" when he and Ryu are lamenting their situation in Sagat's arms market, saying it can't possibly get any worse, right before realizing they're in the middle of a stand off between Bison's and Sagat's mooks.

Global Currency: This is what Bison intends for his Bison Dollars to be. As he says, each one will be worth exactly five British pounds, "for that is the price they will set when I kidnap their Queen!" Of course, until that time they're about as valuable as Monopoly dollars, which Sagat rudely points out when Bison tries to use them in their arms deal.

Chris Sims: On the contrary, Matt. It will only take one Bison Dollar to have your maroon uniform cleaned and pressed. That is the exchange rate that Tide will agree to… once I have kidnapped the Queen of Detergent.

Go-Go Enslavement: After Bison gets his hands on Chun-Li, she ends up in a Qipao and make-up. Of course, she's only letting him think she's helpless.

A God Am I: Bison's megalomania grows so large that he claims to be a god in the final showdown with Guile.

Bison: Something wrong, Colonel? You come here prepared to fight a madman, and instead you found a god? [...] You still refuse to accept my godhood? Keep your own God! In fact, this might be a good time to pray to Him!

Handy Cuffs: Chun-Li has her hands bound in front of her. It takes her about two seconds to snap the leather, leaving her with spiked wrist guards and Bison's ass to kick.

Heel Realization: Zangief thought he was fighting for the good guys. As soon as he gets the alignments straightened out, he proceeds to help the AN troops:

Hypocrite: Guile tells Chun-Li that the war isn't about her personal vendetta... it's about his. Of course, he also plans to save the hostages, so he's at least thinking more rationally and considering the larger and longer-term consequences of his actions.

I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Notably averted in the scene when Sagat is making his weapons deal with Bison, everybody is keeping their fingers off the triggers and appears to be pointing the weapons away from each other (though of course, they are in a large room and it's unclear if they are pointing the weapons at anybody else).

Ignored Enemy: Ryu and Ken ignore their captors and have a brief fistfight in the prison camp, but it's a ruse to grab the keys to the lock.

Jerkass Realization: Zangief is stupid enough to not realize that he's working for a colossal asshole until much, much later.

Kaiju: The battle between E. Honda and Zangief in the model of Bisonopolis looks like a Kaiju battle when viewed through a security camera.

Cracked: Raul Julia acted like his whole movie was a pantomime and displayed so little knowledge of the game that he probably thought a joystick was something you rented from a Thai ladyboy. But at least he was obviously enjoying himself. Raising the total number of people enjoying the movie to "One," or "One more thanLegend of Chun-Li." (To be fair, though, Julia was dying and knew this would be his final film, so he had fun with it.)

Load-Bearing Hero: When a door that leads to outside of Bison's doomed fortress threatens to close right on front of our heroes, Zangief, who just had a change of heart, steps in to keep it open.

Before Guile and Bison face off, they say their win quotes from the game to each other. Doubles as Pre-Asskicking One-Liners for them both:

Guile: Are you man enough to fight with me? Bison: Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed.

In Bison's bedroom there are several matching sets of officer's caps and bathrobes in bright colors. These all follow Bison's alternate color schemes in the game.

Toward the end, when Guile finds Blanka and Dhalsim in the laboratory as the Shadaloo base is being destroyed, Dhalsim has lost his hair and has three rivulets of blood running down from the top of his head, much like Dhalsim's face paint in the games.

Named by the Adaptation: Several characters are given first and last names. Ryu and Chun-Li's surnames are Hoshi and Xiang/Zhang, respectively, Sagat's first name (Victor), and Guile's full name and rank (Colonel William F. Guile). Dhalsim is considered his last name since he is referred to as Dr. Dhalsim in the movie.

Neck Snap: Inverted. Cammy is shown attempting a neck snap on a mook, but it doesn't seem to work as the guy stays standing and she has to flip him and punch him hard in order to finish him off.

New Era Speech: Bison gives a pretty epic one to his henchmen, who have somewhat different interpretations of it.

Newscaster Cameo: Real NBC/ABC newscaster Sander Vanocur makes an audio-only appearance at the start, as the anchor of "GNT" coverage of the "Crisis in Shadaloo".

Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Charlie is mutated and tortured halfway into insanity because Guile decided to make it clear, in front of the psychotic dictator, that he was friends with the leader of the Allied Nations forces.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Bison chooses to sic Blanka on the hostages instead of killing them via firing squad. This allows them to survive long enough for Guile to get them out of harm's way right before the final confrontation.

Nightmare Face: Bison's eyes are disturbingly huge at times. Especially when he says "Anyone who opposes me shall be destroyed."

No Pronunciation Guide: Ryu's name is incorrectly pronounced "Rye-you". Ironically, Guile, who fails to pronounce every other word in the dictionary, is the only character capable of saying it right. Bison gets it right, too, but he screws up Zangief's name right before that.

Non-Indicative Name: Despite being a fighting game, relatively little of the run-time involves martial arts combat, with Guile vs. Bison being the only extended fight sequence. The large ensemble spends more time shooting and fighting mooks than other named characters.

Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Guile in the games is American. Guile in the movie is a Belgian-American immigrant? Classic JCVD at work.note The closest thing to an American accent Guile could claim could be Cajun, but even that's a stretch.

Not Quite Dead: After the credits, Bison punches his way out of that wall of monitors.

Obfuscating Stupidity: A variant with Chun-Li. She never goes anywhere without her two burly bodyguards, Balrog and E. Honda, leaving Bison to think that she's defenseless without them:

Chun-Li: That's exactly... what I wanted you to think.

Obliviously Evil: Bison can't seem to grasp why people call him horrific and evil. This is coming from the man who never remembers people he's murdered due to his enormous ego considering them so far beneath him, is holding people hostage, and has a chandelier made of human bones.

Obstructive Bureaucrat: Just as Col. Guile is about to take the fight to Bison's front door, a representative from the AN arrives to give him orders to stand down, as they have decided to accept Bison's ransom demands. Guile then holds a big speech, and goes to battle anyway.

The Only Believer: Zangief appears to be the only one of Bison's followers who buys Bison's line of propaganda and thinks that he's a good guy. Everyone else is there to get paid.

Only in It for the Money: Dee Jay only works for Bison because he promised him a fortune, and was fully aware that Bison was a power mad dictator unlike the Dumb Muscle Zangief. This became a case of Laser-Guided Karmaas his "fortune" turns out to be stacks of worthless Bison dollars.

Only Mostly Dead: Bison after the first part of the fight with Guile. His computer quickly revives him.

Race Lift: Most glaringly, E. Honda went from Japanese to Native Hawaiian. Guile changes ethnicity, largely due to who's playing him.

Raised Hand of Survival: At the end, Bison's hand rises out of the debris while a computer voiceover informs us that his batteries are still working. We then see him opening a computer file labeled "World Domination" and hitting the replay button.

Real Life Writes the Plot: The reason why Vega only has three lines throughout the entire movie is because Jay Tavare was still learning English at the time.

Reality Ensues: Chun-Li is shocked to discover that Bison doesn't remember attacking her village or killing her father. It may have been the defining moment of her life, but for him it was just another day at the office and didn't matter one bit.

Guile: Well, I'm not going home. I'm going to get in my boat, and I'm going up the river, and I'm going to kick that son-of-a-bitch Bison's ass so hard, that the next Bison wannabe is gonna feel it. Now who wants to go home, and who wants to go with me?!

Scared of What's Behind You: At one point a weaponless Guile faces off with a bunch of armed Bison mooks. He pulls his knife, and the mooks start backing off. This makes Guile cocky and overconfident until he realizes that Cammy and the rest of his troops have shown up behind him, and that's what the mooks were actually scared of.

Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: On the one hand, Guile did take out Bison in the end, but on the other hand, he disobeyed a direct order from his superiors and would very likely be court-martialed for military insurrection.

Ship Tease: Guile/Chun-Li. Also a bit of Guile/Cammy, though more on her end than his.

Shirtless Scene: Twice for Ryu. When his shirt is ripped off by one of Sagat's lady followers before he fights Vega at the beginning and by himself, after Vega claws him (shredding the shirt and leaving scratches on Ryu's abdomen) to begin their fight near the films end.

Captain Sawada served as a substitute for Fei Long, who is the only character from the series at the time who didn't appear in the film. This was because of copyright issues due to Fei Long's resemblance to Bruce Lee. Among the other reasons, the producers deemed Fei Long "too generic" a character, the uncertainty of how a Hong Kong action movie star would fit in the story and the fact he would risk making Ken and Ryu seem redundant.

According to one story, Capcom wanted the actor to play Ryu, but his English skills weren't strong enough for the part, so the Sawada character was created to give him something similar he could do.

Take Over the World: Bison's final objective. It's probably worth noting that he doesn't even come very close. His whole scheme is the hostage thing, at least in the short term. On the other hand, he is flipping insane. If we believe the map, he did take over Burma. That's better than some supervillains.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Bison is a megalomaniacal madman, but he genuinely seems to think that his Evil Plan is for the good of mankind. As he explains in a visionary speech, he wants to create an army of genetic Super Soldiers swearing absolute obedience to him. Then by conquering the world he can do away with conflicts based on race, nation, or creed, and everyone can live peacefully under his dominion.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy